Blake00

Been a while so I thought I'd check in and see how the Bio Evil Genesis/Megadrive guys are doing. They've been mostly focuses on their other commercial games (Alien Cat 2, Hunter Girls, Black Jewel Reborn etc) over the last few years but have been more active on the Bio Evil project again more recently. They also released a much newer Demo 2 on their Itch page too! New intro cutscene: Testing tank controls and collision detection:

Can't be worse than the Willow TV show.. watched it the other day.. broke my inner 80s child's heart! Will be hard to wipe that from my mind the next time I watch the original film.

Thanks man, much appreciated! :) Well, It’s been a long break since the previous project update as I hadn’t had much luck over the last few years sadly, however I’m happy to announce that things have changed and I’ve finally received a bunch of new donations to the SEGA MegaZone Preservation Archive Project ! :) Firstly the awesome Colin May who previously donated the rare issue 2 has successfully scanned issues 5 and 6 which were the very first issues after the final name change from MegaComp to the one we all knew and loved, MegaZone! To successfully obtain these rare early issues is such a great achievement. Thank you Colin! Obtaining these issues has also confirmed that my original assumptions of the October & November 1990 issues being issues 9 & 10 respectively were incorrect as Issue 6 is dated August so there can only be one possible issue 7 between it and the Oct issue I’d said was 9 meaning it must actually be 8, which then means the Nov issue 10 is actually 9 too! The reason I had to originally guess those numbers was because many issues in that period did not say their number and until now I had no issues near Oct/Nov 90 to compare them to and on top of all that the magazine switched between monthly & bi-monthly multiple times during the early 90s making very difficult to predict. Some of my predictions / issue number allocations may still be wrong and only obtaining more lost issues will help reveal the truth! Anyway the good news is Colin has also kindly provided me with the missing 4 pages from issue 8 (formerly 9) so anyone who’s previously obtained this issue (pictured below) will definitely want to re-download it! The next piece of utterly awesome news is something I never thought would happen! Project fan Sean Paul kindly let me know about a passionate TV archiver named FlemishDog (check out their channel to see other awesome content they’ve rescued) who was in possession of not 1 but 2 more MegaZone TV commercials for Issues 26 & 27 and were in the same style with the same cool music as the Issue 25 commercial I’d previously found on my own tapes and added to the collection a while back. I know there’s another one of these out there too as I remember another similar advert in my childhood but with Captain Kirk in it, so I’m guessing it was for Issue 24 as that contained a review of Star Trek 6. With awesome folks like FlemishDog archiving tv adverts maybe one day I’ll see it again! :) Well that’s pretty much everything for this update. Colin has actually given me more but I’m holding off on that as well as holding on to some more MegaZone subscription cards I’ve found as I want to save them for a future update where if all goes well another excellent fellow who shares our passion for preserving retro video game mags named Forgotten Worlds (check out his channel to see other awesome content he’s rescued) has kindly offered to scan several more MegaZone magazines not currently in the collection! So fingers crossed the next project update containing all this good stuff won’t be too far away! :) Sadly I almost managed to obtain yet another missing MegaZone issue I’d never seen before a few days ago dated April 1991 (possibly Issue 14) but was defeated in the ebay auction. I don’t know what’s happened (although I suspect I only have myself to blame by raising awareness for this magazine and making people remember it again) but up until a year or so ago you could buy a MegaZone magazine for 10-20 bucks (AUD), yet now days I seem to be battling with other collectors who are willing to spent 100-150 bucks on a single mag which is just crazy. I’m on a low income so I just can’t justify spending that much on an old video game mag despite how passionate I am about them and my desire to scan them for this preservation project. What’s even more annoying is that I sold 2 mint condition still sealed copies of MegaZone a few years back for around 25 bucks each, so god knows how much I could have got for those now! So anyway if you’re a fellow MegaZone collector who wins an auction for a mag you haven’t seen in this archive, then odds are you’ve beaten me to it! So congratulations, but please, I hope you consider scanning your prize for the preservation project otherwise it could be lost to the world forever. Some consolation though is that the seller took a photo of the cover so I’ve taken a copy of that, so if anyone out there sees a mag looking like this one then please contact me as we need it! There are now presumably only 7 issues missing from the MegaZone preservation collection (issues 3, 7, 10-11 and 13-15)! Hopefully one day we’ll get these final issues backed up and preserved! Big thank you again to everyone for their help! Make sure you visit the The MegaZone Archive to see these latest additions.

Yeah I think the original NES FF2 & 3 were translated by fans, so back in the early 2000s I got my hands on the Japanese roms and applied the translation patches. These days it's probably rather easy to find pre-patched english NES roms around the place so people don't have to worry about doing the whole messy patching stuff. However now that we've got the nice official SNES style pixel remasters of the earlier FF games there's probably no need to hunt them down unless you really really really wanna play the original NES versions.

Growing up a Sega kid I didn't get much NES playtime other than at friends houses and it was of course usually Mario games and Ninja Turtles. When Final Fantasy detonated in the late 90s with FF7 I became a fan and decided that I should go back to where it all began and play through the first 6 via emulation. Graphics wise FF1 hasn't aged quite as well as the games that followed it so at first I wasn't sure if I'd stick with it but it still has its beauty and of course it wasn't long before the gameplay sucked me in. Throughout the 2000s I slowly on and off played and completed FF1-3 on NES via emulation, then in the 2010s I played and finished FF4-6 on PS1 (basically SNES versions with cool cutscenes), and am ready to do FF7-9 on PS1 via emulation this decade too. At this pace I should be playing the modern Final Fantasy games in like 2040-50ish!

Good choice. The NES version is probably the best variant of M&M1. SNES wins for M&M2 (I own the MD version which looks similar but has a soundtrack that could wake the dead lol) and then after that the PC finally got it's act together for M&M3 onwards haha. World of Xeen (4&5) and M&M6.. sooooo good!

Well in the end I enjoyed the film a lot.. but I dunno if it quite fully lived up to my grand expectations (fueled by my mega love of David Lynch's crazy original film and Dennis's amazing Blade Runner 2049). Nevertheless I'm looking forward to part 2 and am pleased that they did a 3D blu-ray release (despite 3D being dead) which I'm importing to Aus as it will be interesting to re-watch it in 3D. Oh and I recently read the art books above too. Really really good! Maximum recommendation for your coffee tables lol.

YES!!!! 2 years later I can finally edit posts haha! Have fixed all my broken links in this thread lol! Sadly no developments on the MegaZone mag front though.. no new scans found and ebay's run dry over the last year.

I've only ever mucked around with the opening areas in that and have always wanted to go and finish it too.. one day.. one day lol

Oooooh, another Wonder Boy 2 in Monster Land fan remake project has been detected thanks to XBuster on the Monster World Discord! This one is in the Unreal engine and looks interesting! Once again the 3D animation leaves a bit to be desired however the world design is pretty cool. I love his attention to detail in the background stuff eg you see the previous or next area (ie a castle or town) in the background on the current level you're in! Like many official game remakes these days he's also set it up so that you can switch between classic Master System 2D graphics & sounds to his new 3D graphics and sounds.

lol yeah it's pretty bad. Took about 10 or so more issues before the covers got really good.

In recent years we've had official remakes of Wonder Boy 1, 3 and now we've got the new WB6 (Monster World 4) one but sadly there still hasn't been one for my personal favourite Wonder Boy 2 in Monster Land! Yes I know some of the others were more feature packed but for purely nostalgic reasons WB2 is my favourite as it was the first RPG like game I ever played and owned. I still hum its music to this day after like nearly 30 years lol! When I started re-collecting Sega Master System games a few years ago it was the first one I bought. So while there's no official remake of Wonder Boy in Monster Land, I've recently discovered the awesome news that someone over at the SMS power forums is doing a fan remake and expansion of the game calling it 'Monsterland Meka', looks like it also includes stuff from WB1 (skateboard) and WB5 (player home) too. It's early days so far but I love the backgrounds! Entire valleys of grass, flowers, forests, & rivers surrounded by mountains. Love the music remasters too! The 3D main character appearance and animation leave a lot to be desired though lol, but its creator Immo has told me that it's just a placeholder until proper 2D animating art work is drawn over the top of it (similar to some of the 2D snake baddies already done). Video: There's a gazillion pictures on his website but here's some of my favourites:

Can someone fix the link? I wanna see this! I loved the film so much as a kid and I think I have a rom copy of the game somewhere but I never did get around to playing it as I know so little about it due to the lack of advertising!

I'm replaying all the old Civilization games and doing a video series about to play them in HD on virtual machines. Also working to preserve thousands of old lost Civ2 scenarios. The above can get tedious sometimes so to take breaks I've been replaying my beloved childhood game Wonder Boy in Monster Land for the Sega Master System. I'm trying to do a freaky time tricks to get triple monster kills and a super high score. Might do a video series show that some day too.

3D Sonic games suck! Leave the 3D stuff to the special stages... *Runs away*...

I started back in the 90s so I've used a crazy amount.. some very old some new lol. This what I have these days... SEGA Master System + Game Gear - Dega & MEKA Genesis/Mega Drive + 32X + CD - Gens, GensGS, & Kega Fusion Nintendo NES Nintendo Entertainment System - Jnes, Mesen, NEStopia, & RockNESX Game Boy + Colour + Advance - VBAdvanceR SNES Super Nintendo Entertainment System - ZsnesW, & Snes9x Nintendo64 - Project64 Game Cube + Nintendo Wii - Dolphin NintendoDS+3DS - Citra, & Desmune SONY PlayStation - ePSXe PlayStation 2 - PCSX2 PlayStation Protable - PPSSPPWin OTHER PC DOS - D-Fend Reloaded (DosBox port) PC Windows - VirtualBox Amiga Computer - WinUAE Arcade Games - MameUI32 AtariST - Steem Commodore 64 - CCS64 Intellivision - Nostalgia Macintosh Classic - ??Lost it, can't remember Nokia S60 Games - Freej2me, & GameMagic Wonder Swan - Oswan

Opps sorry somehow I missed your reply mate haha. Yeah I don't normally necro threads but sometimes desperate times call for desperate measures. Yeah Hyper is all good! I just saw Flugles post about having late 80s early 90s Megazones and nearly fell out of my chair due to me still missing early issues for that period. In the end I spoke with Flugle over PM who confirmed that you guys at oldgamemags don't have any of those super early MegaZone issues either sadly. However I have had some breakthroughs of my own if you guys wish to take copies and add to your site. I managed to bag scanned copies of the super rare issue 1 that started it all when it was called MegaCom (they added the P on the end from issue 2 onwards) along with Issue 4 (which was the final one called MegaComp before changing to MegaZone) and MegaZone Issue 9! More details here: And if you haven't see the earlier posts in the thread then in the previous post before that one above I also scored a copy of Issue 2 (although the scan is pretty bad) which was the first Issue they added the P on the end to call it MegaComp. So now it's just Issue 3 (MegaComp), Issue 5 (the first called MegaZone), 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, & 15 still needed to completely preserve the entire MegaZone collection on the internet library archive! https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A"MegaZone+Magazine"&sort=titleSorter .

FYI it looks like the database link broke again mate lol

Today is a good day.. the part 2 sequel has been green lit due to the movie performing well despite the pandemic and Warner bros streaming antics. https://www.gamespot.com/articles/dune-2-announced-by-legendary-for-october-2023-were-excited-to-continue-the-journey/1100-6497390/ And my Art of Dune book has arrived (to go with my old Art of Blader Runner 2049 one heh). Now if the bloody movie itself would come out here in Australia some time soon that would be great too.

Just noticed they made this funny retro commercial for it: Some more cool gifs too..

Urgh.. sorry guys. Can't seem to delete my own posts (just like I still can't edit them either despite someone telling me I needed 10 posts to unlock that feature). So unfortunately someone else will have to get rid of the duplicate sorry. Prob better to kill the first one instead of the second as the embeds didn't work in the first one!

Super excited about this one.. I loved the David Lynch 80s film and grew up playing video games. Am worried I'll flop due to them releasing it at home on the same day as the cinema though.

Oh and they've since done a cool gameplay video that's been making the rounds in the console forums: Same footage but without all the VHS effects:

Just when you think you've seen everything lol.. these guys have been working on a Resident Evil 1 game on the good old SEGA Genesis / Mega drive and it looks pretty awesome! Obviously not 3D but a very cool 2.5D isometric retro conversion of all the rooms, monsters, and characters. I tried out the demo on the Itch page and sadly its waaaaaaay older than the stuff they've been posting over the last few years. Hope they get it done before Capcom's lawyers see it lol. https://pscd.itch.io/bio-evil Recent test demo that looks insane! even the music conversions are awesome Big fan preview showing lots of cool footage (Commentary not in English so I have no idea what's being said)

Yeah I wish the Wonderswan had done better.. not because I wanted one but because they were remaking the original 3 NES Final fantasy games on them in a SNES style but because the console did so badly they abandoned the remake of FF3 and converted the FF1 & FF2 remakes to the Playstation one for the Originas collection and left out FF3. That really ticked me for like 20+ friggin years lol! However of course yesterday the new pixel remasters of the first 6 FF games series started coming out including FF3 so finally it got that 2D love bringing it up to the same quality of the other 5 classic FF games. Something I never thought would happen after 20 years so am very happy. Although sadly they don't have the special FMV sequences they did for the PS1 remakes so a part of me still thinks 'what if' the Wonderswan had done better and they'd made that FF3 remake and ported it to Ps1 with some cool videos.. but meh after 20+ years I'll take what I can get haha! But if I'm going to name a console failure purely for the sake of me loving that console then it's gotta be the Mega CD / Sega CD. I often wonder how it would have sold if instead of marketing it for its FMV capabilities they'd marketed it on it's extra processing power or moreso it's 3D/mode 7 like capabilities (eg Sonic CD special stages, Batman Returns driving stages, Thunderhawk, Soul Star, F1 Beyond the Limit, Adventures of Batman & Robin etc) it might have done better as once all the bad reviews on FMV games playability started pouring in and spread via word of mouth it just killed interest. To this day there's still people out there who think the Sega CD is just a Genesis with a CD drive attachment lol. They had no idea about it's extra capabilities that were barely used. If people had seen this kind of stuff below on their TVs instead of just the FMV stuff maybe things would have been different, or at least gone a bit better. As even now I still remember the amazing Starfox adverts on TV and everyone talking about how amazing they were. Little did anyone know sega was doing 3D stuff around the time time on the Sega CD that looked more advanced but was not being marketed much at all. https://youtu.be/FcyIVFQDIl0?t=132 https://youtu.be/fwVuYfr5fw0?t=30 As for the SuperGrafx I never even heard of that until a few years ago when I started getting Retro Gamer magazines delivered and they'd do specials on it lol! 5 games is terrible.. So yeah.. definitely failed big time!